BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – A top federal wildlife official said there’s too much uncertainty about climate change to prove it threatens the snow-loving wolverine – overruling agency scientists who warned of impending habitat loss for the so-called “mountain devil.”
There’s no doubt that the high-elevation range of wolverines is getting warmer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Noreen Walsh said.
But any assumption about how that will change snowfall patterns is “speculation,” Walsh said. She told her staff to prepare to withdraw a proposal to protect the animals under the Endangered Species Act.
Walsh’s comments were contained in a May 30 memo obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris Tollefson confirmed that Walsh – who heads the agency’s mountain-prairie region – authored the document.
Agency Director Dan Ashe will have the final say, with a decision due Aug. 4.